First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety—A Personal Journey Through Anxiety and Self-Discovery

by Sarah Wilson

It’s this lack of connection and clarity that leaves us fretting and checking and spinning around in our heads and needing to compensate with irrational, painful behaviors, whether it be OCD, phobias or panic attacks. It’s this sense of missing . . . something . . . that leaves us feeling lonely and incomplete and fluttery. Something is not right. We haven’t landed.

Japanese scientists call the phenomenon Shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing.” Their recent studies suggest the benefits come from breathing in “aromas from the trees” known as phytoncides, an array of natural aerosols that trees give off for pest control.

Every man rushes elsewhere into the future because no man has arrived at himself. — Michel de Montaigne

If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.

“Ask yourself what ‘problem’ you have right now, not next year, tomorrow, or five minutes from now. What is wrong with this moment?”

BONUS! A LITTLE LIST OF KNOW-THYSELF-BETTER READS, BY NO MEANS COMPLETE The Road to Character — David Brooks Your Voice in My Head — Emma Forrest The Noonday Demon — Andrew Solomon The Fry Chronicles — Stephen Fry Monkey Mind — Daniel Smith Reasons to Stay Alive — Matt Haig My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind — Scott Stossel The Bell Jar — Sylvia Plath Flick across the page for a bit more about Jamison’s story. An Unquiet Mind — Kay Redfield Jamison M Train — Patti Smith Book of Longing — Leonard Cohen